America's "First Car-Free Neighborhood" Is Going Pretty Good, Actually?
82 comments
·February 5, 2025Terretta
trgn
I can't stand usa can only achieve the effortless luxury of walkability in the vacation communities for its doctors and lawyers, but cannot make its own city centers adopt the same qualities.
darth_avocado
I also can’t stand that when they do achieve walkability, it’s often soulless concrete covered dystopia. No trees. No art. No vibrant spaces for the public to enjoy. Just ways to herd people into stores. What happened to having a more welcoming public space?
fnimick
It isn't profitable.
residentraspber
It's seemingly not going to get any better soon, either. A new candidate for mayor of Boston has 3 main policy agendas [1]: Housing affordability, public school quality, and removing bike lanes.
Despite being farther from Cambridge (a different city than Boston, so they have a different mayor), I prioritize biking to places there to meet friends or go out to dinner. It is just a much more pleasant experience than nearly anywhere in Boston proper.
[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/04/us/boston-mayor-josh-kraf...
insane_dreamer
I would have thought a mayor prioritizing affordable housing would also prioritize _more_ bike lanes, not fewer. That's odd.
fnimick
It's been very funny hearing neighbors talk about how the literal billionaire is somehow just a common Boston man and Michelle Wu is an "elitist carpetbagger". How are all these billionaires being seen as relatable and meanwhile middle class academics and scientists are all the elites?
yaomtc
There's also Mackinaw Island in Michigan, which has banned cars at the end of the 19th century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mackinac_Island
It only had a population of 583 permanent residents at last count, though. It's mostly a tourist destination.
zdragnar
Cars and electric bikes are banned, but horse drawn carriages are still present.
The island itself is somewhat bicycle friendly if you can manage hills, but other than the touristy downtown, all the housing is spread out and definitely not what anyone would think of as walkable, especially in winter months.
rpastuszak
Was Midnight Mass shot there? This place reminds me of it a lot.
(not from the US obv.)
lesuorac
Perhaps in the summer there are no cars but from their photo I can see several cars.
mattkrause
I see a few trucks, which might be needed for hauling heavy items, but not any passenger cars.
lesuorac
The road next to the tennis courts definitely looks like passenger vehicles to me.
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d2a6bf9a14008...
wiether
Funny how you spotted cars in the picture, and had to make the argument about the weather... yet you missed this :
> Except for emergency and essential services, vehicles are generally not permitted.
lesuorac
>> Funny how you spotted cars in the picture, and had to make the argument about the weather... yet you missed this :
Funny how you apparently read the entire article.. yet you missed this from the first paragraph.
> And in the summer, there are no cars!
>> generally not permitted.
These are the kind of weasel words that mean yes. I guess you're the kind of guy that thinks boneless wings contains bones [1].
[1]: https://www.courtnewsohio.gov/cases/2024/SCO/0725/230293.asp
insane_dreamer
Yeah but small islands are a completely different category.
ranger_danger
To be fair, Ocean Beach is much larger than a single neighborhood. Semantics I guess.
FinnLobsien
I thought this cited criticism is interesting:
> Culdesac is a far cry from "the incremental urbanism and thickening our cities need. A dozen or even a thousand Culdesacs can’t solve that problem," because they would lack long-term growth benefits including "the resilience of a system where many hands have built the neighborhood and have a financial stake in it" and would reflect "a zoning and finance stream that favors industrial over incremental production."
It's interesting that one of the most walkable, lively and beautiful urban centers —Paris—was not built this way, but was the result of a big reform by Eugene Haussmann that flattened the "previous Paris" and put his new version on top, which was extremely centrally planned.
The idea of a community incrementally building their infrastructure together based on arising needs and desires is beautiful. But it's not practical in the 2020s where housing is much harder to build due to regulation, zoning etc.
Plus this "incremental" approach can go wrong as well. People forget that for the longest time, cities had higher mortality because they just grew organically and some of that wasn't actually great for humans.
The things we see have survived for a reason. Most cities have gotten rid of A LOT of things that grew "incrementally".
I think this incremental approach is a romantic idea and more is right than wrong about it. But it's also the 2020s where housing is crazy expensive and we have higher expectations of buildings and neighborhoods.
waveBidder
Tokyo is an example of incrementalism making a beautiful resilient city, while still maintaining safety standards.
bombcar
Tokyo also has 3 million cars, so walkable/transit city and car free aren’t the same.
margalabargala
Tokyo burned to the ground 80 years ago and got to be rebuilt from scratch then.
striking
Do you think there could be some sort of balance? Something between the tactical approach of redoing a single road at a time and ... flattening all of Paris?
The way I see it, it can be hard for a centrally planned approach to meet all of the needs of the residents of each area. Is there some sort of way to adapt the incremental approach for the modern era?
aidenn0
Indeed, every area that is underserved by retail can most cheaply be incrementally improved by adding a strip mall, but strip-malls area really shitty local maximum to get stuck in.
robertlagrant
> where housing is much harder to build due to regulation, zoning etc
The central planning must increase to overcome the downsides of central planning.
firesteelrain
I didn't see it mentioned in the article. But how do people get to groceries, doctors appointments, hospital visits, or school? I assume you need some sort of wagon. When we lived in an apartment, we pulled up as close as possible to our building and took several trips up and downstairs. But there is no car in this scenario. Family of four consumes a lot every week.
Also I imagine that because its apartment based, people are more inclined to spend time outside rather than couped up in their apartment?
ohples
In theory when you live within walking distance to a grocery store it becomes much easier to do many smaller trips, rather than a once weekly "shopping trip". Your right though this article doesn't really talk about that.
We live in a city down the street from a grocery store. We sort of treat the store as an extended pantry. When we need to make something, we just go down to the store and get the stuff and make it. Door to door time to the store is 2-3 minutes, the lines are usually never long because it's a smaller store but they have about as much staff as a larger one.
Whenever we need to get a little more we just bring one of the carts from the store up to our apartment via the elevator and bring it back.
As for the rest of the things. Again if you can walk or take good transit there is no need to drive.
firesteelrain
Its more of my own ignorance and lack of experience to be able to appreciate that kind of lifestyle because we have a two story home with lots of space, two car garage, and three cars. There is a lot of freedom but lack of walkability. We have to drive to walk somewhere like an outdoor style mall. Or to plaza's to doctor's, optometrist, Target, Walmart, Aldi's, etc
AlotOfReading
Culdesac has on-demand car rentals for $5/hr so you can do things that transit or rideshare aren't well suited for. Most activities can be done with transit or rideshare in that part of Tempe though. It's mainly a student/young professional area, not a lot of families with 2.5 kids that need huge grocery hauls.
firesteelrain
I see. A lot of the photos do show a lot of fit and young people. No families and no one over age 30 probably. I am not the target market.
bryanlarsen
Granny trikes acquired the name for a reason. It seems like 40 years ago old people were far more likely to do the car-free / car-light lifestyle than younger people.
mfashby
Adaptive cycling. I've met folks well into their 80s riding trikes to get places (hip replacements and all).
shkkmo
The article interviews a family with kids and a car-free area is a great location for an elderly person who can still take care of themselves other than driving (many elderly people end up driving well after it is no longer safe.)
insane_dreamer
That's what ZipCar was supposed to do (not sure how popular it became)
insane_dreamer
I lived outside the US most of my life. Never owned a car. Public transport, and the occasional car rental. Even with 2 kids. Unfortunately now that I'm in the US, we have to have a car.
episteme
Walk, bike, bus, tram, train, ferry, boat?
firesteelrain
Right but look at groceries, that's a ton to haul if they don't have a grocery store there.
I live somewhere that a car is required so the concept is foreign to me.
lesuorac
I've seen people occasionally walking around NYC with personal(?) shopping carts.
They look different than anything in the store so I assume they got them for themselves.
ex. https://www.amazon.com/Lifetime-Home-UPGRADED-Waterproof-Gro...
abdullahkhalids
I walk to the grocery store, which is about a 25 min walk one way, once a week. I get about 90% of my groceries for the week in that trip and they fit in my backpack + one shoulder bag for crushable vegetables.
Do it from +40C to -20C through the year. I am in my late 30s.
insane_dreamer
Depends on how you shop. I lived in a large metropolis with 2 kids and we didn't have a car (not in the US, of course).
stouset
If a grocery store is walking distance, you don’t need to do a massive haul once a week.
episteme
You can carry a lot if the bags are suitable. Grocery delivery is also becoming very popular.
mfashby
Cargo bike?
firesteelrain
Wonder if this works for everyone. Like if you have an infant, where would you put it ?
Lots of different logistics to figure out
mfashby
The front loading variety can fit car seats for infants. My 2yo fits on a rear seat no problem.
Might not work for absolutely everyone but it sure works for some.
rayiner
Superblocks are such a great idea, and a way to incrementally make cities more walkable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_block#Superblock
insane_dreamer
Barcelona a good example of this
karaterobot
What a weird headline. Cars were invented long after America became a country, so every neighborhood in America for about 150 years was a car-free neighborhood. This can't be the first one, and may not even be the newest one either, since it's two years old.
joduplessis
Amazing lack of real photos and, seemingly, people.
amarcheschi
That's basically similar to some historical centres in some cities in italy (eg. Pisa, Firenze). Although in italy, traffic is reduced and not zeroed, mostly limited to only people living there. This way, people can still use a car to move when they need, but it's still walkable for everybody
kittikitti
After reading peoples comments, people don't realize how bad car brain is. Yes, there have been countless car free cities and many studies show that they're vastly better. However, the auto industry brain washing is so effective that everything an American does starts with a car. They are unable to think without one.
rhapsodic
[dead]
adolph
This seems like a large apartment/condo complex with a variance for number of parking spaces.[0] I think the distinction between this and a conventional neighborhood is that the central organization retains property ownership. Culdesac Tempe has "700+ furnished and unfurnished apartment homes for rent." The proportion of property owned vs rented is significant because of the skin in the game a person with an ownership has and how that drives different tradeoffs. I suppose neighborhoods with super-powerful and intrusive Home-Owners Associations would be similar to Culdesac Tempe.
staticcaucasian
Exactly. This is an apartment complex with some so-so on-site retail situated on a light rail trunk line, just outside of a university and eventually downtown Phoenix. Reduced parking but still accessible to delivery drivers. In most other cities this would be just a 5-over-1.
insane_dreamer
These damn socialists are taking over our god-fearing car-centric American cities and DESTROYING OUR WAY OF LIFE
On a more serious note, it's unfortunate that US cities aren't more walkable and there are very few places where you can survive without a car.
anthk
So, Europe, basically. My metropolitan area can be accesed by bus/train and even boat in some shores. You don't need a car at all. Heck, parking your car in the center of the city is almost wallet-suicidal as you have to actually pay per hour.
robertlagrant
I don't know why people think Europe is homogenous. Go to somewhere like Hamburg and you'll see roads wide enough for cars and for buses to run on time along side them.
karaterobot
Europe is not America's first car-free neighborhood.
spoonjim
The first quote is from a 50-year-old mother of two who left her husband and kids in British Columbia to do ocean research in Arizona so that’s the kind of weirdo you’ll be living with
Hardly America's first car-free neighborhood, nor (not by a long shot) its largest.
Along the east coast there are multiple communities on islands accessible only by ferry that are foot traffic only. You can tell they're real places because they have their own U.S. Post Offices (not just mailboxes).
For example: https://villageofoceanbeach.org/about